Best place to order meats online in the states?

The butcher to NY's best restaurants:

Pat LaFrieda Meat Purveyors

This is one hard working, well-intentioned guy -- $$$$$$$$$$$$!

 

Go straight to the source, or I'm sure you could find a quality local butcher?

 

Holy crap they sure are proud of their meat aren't they!!

 

Don't spend extra money to buy meat online.

Whether you live in the city or the country, you can easily find a good butcher anywhere.

Matt

 

Some of the best available in the country. I'm just not sure that the difference in quality is worth the difference in price in most situations -- and when it is, there are phenomenal steakhouses with the right equipment and expertise to extract every last bit of flavor out them.

 

I just bought some local lamb and beef at the farmers market tonight. I love local sources. Talked to the lady who tends to them herself.

I get that they sell great stuff but $40-60+ per pound seems steep.

 

Yeah.

His stuff is among the best prime around, which is picked for him from a relatively small ranch. He then ages it. He also doesn't freeze for transit like many mail orders do.

Whatever works. (I don't like his aged chopped meat, for example, no matter which blend, no matter where I've tried it. It's not moist as the fat in it doesn't seem to melt easily. It's like eating pate, a mouth feel I don't like in a burger.)

 

snake river farms

Snake River Farms

 

I used to love their show, "Meat Men". The old man was a real character...

 

I agree with Jdubbya, seek out a local source for your meat. I buy from a place around Baltimore called Liberty Delight Farms. The quality and flavor of grass fed beef vs. USDA is stunning, and doesn't cost anywhere near $40/lb!

 

For pork either snake river farms or duroc compart. The duroc dry aged stuff is fantastic.

 

Exactly!

I just had a locally slaughtered hamburger last night, with french fries cooked in tallow. Fantastic.

Matt

 

I'd LOVE to support our local farmers market. Unfortunately, their prices aren't too far off those $40 to $60 per pound numbers. Ok - more like $15 to $30 per pound, but sure isn't like the prices I've found at farmers markets elsewhere. You'd think that in a community of just a few thousand folks where most are at or below the poverty level, you might just find some bargains at such a place...

Have a local farmer who is just starting to butcher & ship meats - I'll sure post further if I find his quality and pricing are decent!

 

For the few who may not know: dry aging prime meat can "cost" as much as 33% in weight loss, and take as long as 30 days to achieve under very specific temps and humidity levels. Then you trim away a lot of exterior fat that non-prime retailers don't have to deal with. Those are just two of the reasons for the seemingly exorbitant prices of dry aged prime.

In most NY Metro shops and farmers markets I either see prime or dry aged at the upper end. I rarely see dry aged prime. When I do, the prices are in the same league as Pat's. The difference is that Pat doesn't play the retail games I know firsthand. (FedEX overnight shipping in a styro cooler with gel packs for the immediate area is included in his /lb prices. (S&H fees are in direct ratio to distance outside the area.))

 

Flannery Beef. You can thank me later...(assuming you like perfectly dry aged, heavily corn-fed, well marbled beef). It doesn't hurt that Bryan may well be the finest gentleman I've met...

That said, I've conducted or taken part in several blind steak tastings. Usually source from 1-2 Wyagu providers, Allen Bros, Lobel's, Flannery, a few local places wherever we do the tasting, and...costco prime. (heck, we even threw in Omaha steaks once...they sucked).

Results vary, but Flannery is usually at or near the top. Costco prime often comes in top 3 and is usually half the cost (or less).

From Flannery, my favorite is a 2 lb+ bone-in ribeye California reserve (Brandt farms is the source usually). Grilled at high temp and sliced to serve. Absurdly great...

 

This is one of the conundrums of quality food today. Small farms are able to give the focus on producing quality but that quality comes at a higher price, sometimes more dramatically than the typical CAFO produced meats.

But I'm not quite understanding what you're saying. That you don't buy at the farmers market because the meat costs $15-30/lb?

 

It really is hard to beat Costco for good steaks. We buy whole tenderloins and slice off a bunch of filets. We use a local butcher shop when we don't need quite that much meat.

 

I understand the flavor and [claimed] environmental advantages of grass fed prime beef but for me, corn fed is the way.

Thanks for the recommendation.

In my limited experience with them, Lobel's is a bit overhyped -- it may be due to the new economy . . .

 

10-15 years ago I was a huge Lobel's fan. Frankly my suspicion (and it relates to all suppliers) is that there is multiples higher demand for ultra-prime grade beef today compared with more than 10 years ago. Its everywhere now. I think there simply isn't enough super-prime grade beef to meet their demand and some are having to use cows that are a little lower down the chain. Still "prime", but not the "pick of the litter" as in the past. I'm not saying I "know" this to be true, nor am I saying it relates to Lobel's alone. I actually have been thinking this about all of my favorite suppliers...

 

I've had purely grass fed beef that was tender and flavorful. However, that is often the exception. I prefer corn-finished very marbled beef. IIRC the stuff Bryan uses is corn fed for some crazy number of days...I wanna say 180, but that sounds like too many?